


that's not a skirt, girl, that's a sawn-off shotgun

by lanyon



Series: a garden left for ruin by a billionaire [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alcohol, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-23
Updated: 2012-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-30 00:18:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or the continuing exploits of Clint Barton and Tony Stark.</p><p>"Darcy's like a Bond girl and Clint can’t quite figure out if she’s the good type or the bad type but he knows she’s the sort of one you want to have in your lifeboat at the end of the movie."</p>
            </blockquote>





	that's not a skirt, girl, that's a sawn-off shotgun

It’s night-time and Clint is wondering whether he shouldn’t call Phil but he can’t quite figure out what time it is in New York right now and, anyway, what goes on tour stays on tour and Darcy’s just ordered a round of cocktails. Her criteria for drinks orders revolve around the words she can recognise in the Cyrillic alphabet.

 

The cocktails are so blue that they practically glow and they were ordered because Darcy recognised the words ‘vodka’ and ‘Blue Curacao’.

 

Tony claps her on the shoulders. “I like this girl. I’m just saying if I was, like, six months younger and not all shacked up and shit-“

 

Darcy tosses her hair over her shoulder. She has perfected the art of the lofty pout. It is a thing of beauty. “I suppose I’m okay with losing out to Captain America.” She takes a gulp of her liquid blue. “I’d hit that.”

Clint snorts and sips his own drink. It probably tastes vile but he lost the ability to taste vodka about six drinks ago. It’s awesome. “Most of the human race would hit that,” he says with great and sombre certainty.

 

“ _Hey_ ,” says Tony.  “Party foul.” It’s protest for form’s sake only. He’s wearing that sort of smug grin that once proclaimed, _I am Iron Man_ and now states clearly, _I’m sleeping with Captain America_. “Anyway, Barton, aren’t you, uh, sort of spoken for?”

“Oh, yes,” says Clint, pleased. If he was sober, he wouldn’t even acknowledge the question, much less answer it. When he’s drunk, though, he gets handsy, if Phil’s around, and he gets morose, if Phil’s absent.

 

“How long have you and Phil been together?” asks Darcy. She’s already finished her drink and, beside the faint flush on her cheeks, she doesn’t seem the worse for the wear. Oh, to be a twenty-something year-old again.

 

“Like. Ten years. Give or take,” says Clint, as though he doesn’t know that it’s eleven years since the last time he was in Moscow and he and Phil were laying low. “I mean, we’ve been living together for ten years.” He gazes into the depth of his drink and suddenly misses Phil and it’s like a generalised ache, weighing down his limbs. “He’s, uh, pretty cool.” A frowning pause and, man, he might be drunk but at least he’s not prone to hyperbole. “I miss him.”

 

Darcy squeals. Clint doesn’t get it because he does miss Phil. Women always seem to be disproportionately thrilled when they learn that he’s in a stable, long-term relationship. He knows that Phil Coulson is a catch but all the rumours that Clint is a loose canon are greatly exaggerated and it seems a strange thing for anyone to get worked up about, other than Phil and Clint. They just _work_ on, like, a deep-and-visceral-and-fucking-spiritual level. He gestures. It’s a slightly pitiful shrug-and-twitch, really, but he’s being drunk under the table by a tiny little girl. His dignity is a thing of the past.  “Why the shrieking?” he asks.

 

“Excellent question, Barton.” Tony swivels around from his staring match with a frightening-looking bearded man in the far corner. “Why so shrill, Darcy?”

 

“It’s cute,” says Darcy, swirling her straw around her glass. The blue has been diluted by melting ice and looks rather anaemic. “I mean. I’m totally glad that Phil’s getting some.” She pats Clint’s upper arm, her lips pursing briefly in appreciation of the sheer bulk of his musculature.

 

“He’s getting _lots_ ,” says Clint, with misplaced defensiveness.

 

It provokes more shrieks until Darcy declares that she wants to go dancing. As if out of nowhere, Tony is surrounded by three willowy women. “We’re dancers,” says the tallest.

 

“What kind of dance?” asks Clint, briefly dazzled.

 

“Ballet,” says the one with fiery red hair. She reminds him a bit of Natasha. He misses Natasha, too, and has no doubt that she’s going to hand his ass to him for fucking drinking in the Motherland without her.

 

.

 

On the flight back to the US, with Darcy curled up under Tony’s suit jacket, Clint tries to piece together the night before. Mostly, he remembers the three ballet dancers en pointe in the middle of a dance floor somewhere near the Tretyakov. Or maybe it was in the Tretyakov. He has dim recollections of Tony demanding that the gallery be opened up or else he’d buy it and become the owner of the world’s largest private collection of Russian art. Tony’s extremely good at threatening to buy shit from under people’s feet and Clint admires that, even if his personal preference is stealth and generally being a sneaky motherfucker.

 

He thinks that’s what happened, though. Party in an art gallery. He recalls being faintly horrified by a painting of Ivan the Terrible having just killed his son. He wonders if inadvertent absorption of culture will get him some sort of bonus points with Phil.  Shit, he should have brought something back for him.

 

He rubs his head. Other stuff. He’s remembering other stuff. Like a really serious conversation with Darcy and her eyes were wide and round as he perhaps went into too much detail about his bedroom preferences. Most people assume that Phil tops and, don’t get Clint wrong, they do it that way too and it’s fucking amazing. Most of the time, though, Clint’s on top and it’s really simple: Phil spends his days in rigid control and meetings and debriefings and coordinating potentially devastating missions. He is the boss of everyone. Even Tony’s started to acknowledge that maybe Phil Coulson is the man who gets shit done, who can read the variables, better than Tony and better than Bruce, and who keeps it all together so no one else has to.

 

Whenever Phil’s home – when _they’re_ home – and they’re together, Clint opens Phil up and he knows that, when Phil’s head lolls to the side and he licks his dry lips and he can’t even say Clint’s name or utter anything beyond wordless whimpers, Clint is the only person who can do this. He’s the only person who can reduce Phil Coulson to so many fragments and it keeps Phil from getting too strung out. Phil knows that there is someone to catch every last fucking part of him if he ever disintegrates. Clint pulls Phil apart and he holds him together and Phil’s lips wrap around the tip of Clint’s callused thumb and there’s nothing more fucking perfect on the planet.

 

Shit. Clint thinks he might have told most of this to Darcy.

 

He really should have brought something back for Phil.

 

He leans forward and tugs at Darcy’s arm. She opens one eye and looks at him balefully.  “What?” she asks. How anyone can inject that much petulance into a single syllable word is beyond Clint and he’s the fucking master of irritability when he wants to be. Right now, though, he’s never been more serious about anything in his life. Well, apart from archery. And Phil. He leans in close.

 

“What goes on tour, stays on tour.”

 

.

 

Darcy gets off lightest. It seems a little unfair but she’s been viewed as the innocent party here. Clint reckons it’s because she’s so young and, as well as the lofty pout, she does this thing with her eyes that make her look all innocent and shit.  It’s why he confided in her, he’s sure. No one would ever believe that it was her idea to go to Moscow.

 

Of course, Darcy doesn’t think she got off lightly at all. She’s been told that she has to see out the academic year without putting a foot out of place and then she’s going to be brought into the SHIELD fold. Apparently, it’s too much trouble to have to debrief her as a civilian bystander every time Clint and Tony decide they want to go on a pub crawl and the rest of semester should give Fury and Hill enough time to figure out where she’ll fit in best. Clint is not willing to acknowledge that her skill in getting agents drunk and ferreting all kinds of information out of them is probably invaluable. She’s like a Bond girl and Clint can’t quite figure out if she’s the good type or the bad type but he knows she’s the sort of one you want to have in your lifeboat at the end of the movie. 

 

Darcy jabs Tony in the chest, just left of the arc reactor. “I hope you know you’ve deprived me of a dissolute youth, Mr Stark. I’m going to be paying taxes before the year is out. I’m going to be contributing to a SHIELD pension plan.”

 

“Fiscal responsibility is no laughing matter,” says Phil. Clint knows that he’s fucking cracking up on the inside.

 

“I’m not laughing,” says Darcy and she folds her arms. “I’m supposed to join the ranks of the highly educated unemployed and you guys are giving me a purpose in life. You’re skewing the curve, you guys.”

 

Clint’s not sure but he’s pretty sure that she’s cracking up on the inside too. Fuck. If this is allowed to continue, Darcy Lewis and Phil Coulson are going to be the most terrifying double act since Tony and Clint. _Fuck_. This can’t be allowed to continue.

 

“We’ll have you back in New Mexico tonight,” says Phil. He and Darcy bland at each other like it’s a fucking art form, except her mouth’s just a bit more expressive and the fine lines at the corners of Phil’s eyes give away his amusement. Clint knows he’s the only one who can translate because he’s the only one who can see those fine lines.

 

“Wheels up in an hour, Miss Lewis. Say your goodbyes.” Phil walks away before Clint can say anything to him. It’s only then that he realizes that Phil’s really pissed with him. There wasn’t even a flicker of eye contact between them (and a flicker is all it usually takes Phil to convey a Shakespearian monologue’s worth of information).

 

Tony watches Phil leave before raising an eyebrow in Clint’s direction. “Shouldn’t you be going to get that, tiger?”

 

“Fuck you, Stark.” A manly fistbump follows.

Tony laughs. “See you tomorrow, Barton.”

  
Clint grins. They’ll be closely watched for a few days and then, hopefully, Hydra or Loki or someone will blow some shit up, and Tony and Clint can be heroic and then slip the leash.

 

Dublin’s next on the to-do list and Clint wants to see if Darcy can out-drink the Irish.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> +Title, once again, from the Arctic Monkey's "Suck it and See". It's a song full of brilliant lyrics.  
> +Darcy's tactic for selecting cocktails in a Russian bar is pretty much what I did during one interesting month in Moscow seven years ago. It works.  
> +This is your fault. Yes, you. If you commented or kudosed or hit upon 'a garden left for ruin by a billionaire', you may take responsibility for this continuation of the series.  
> +And, yes, there will be Steve/Tony in the future. I'm just working my way towards it.  
> +This was written over a few internetless days and I'm currently a bit sleep-deprived but my world is a better place for having walked through an airport at 5am, listening to Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' while carrying a slightly too-large-for-my-case print of Captain America under my arm. That's probably your fault, too.


End file.
